A blog about good food and bad food and the joy of eating - especially weird food.

I am a writer and a Mommy. I am a devout Jew.
These are the most important books I have read:
The Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu, Stephen Mitchell translation. Spiritual Divorce by Debbie Ford. Living Inspired by Akiva Tatz. My kitchen would suggest I'm a closet carny, as would my love of Branson.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Sushi House (or raising spoiled Johnson County surburban kids)

I was raised in the country. There were wheat fields behind my house and I ran around barefoot through the woods in the summer, climbing the hay rolls and seeking out giant catfish heads nailed to trees next to ponds. I was stung by every kind of bee. I liked to watch the tadpoles grow.

I have scars from gaping holes made by who-knows-what that I couldn't be bothered to attend to and kept on playing while they healed crooked.

I knew to check for ticks at the end of the day and to pick up big rocks so that the holes they left opened away from me in case a copperhead was nestled underneath.

I climbed trees and scrambled across rooftops; I caught crawdads all day long in the lake and covered myself with mud.

I think we went out to dinner sometimes. It seems to me that we did. But if you had asked me where I wanted to go I would have said McDonald's. And I wouldn't have been able to name much else.

Yesterday my just 5 year old named her favorite restaurants: Sushi House, The Bristol, Cinzetti's, and Korma Sutra. While I am delighted that among these you will find Asian, Italian, Indian and seafood, I have to wonder what it means that my children are growing up this way instead of the way I grew up.

They become exhausted when asked to walk a block, have only our little fenced-in yard to explore and instead of knowing fields, know speed limits and the roads, highways, shopping malls and areas where all their favorite dining establishments are found.

Alas, I am a suburban Foodie and my kids are bound to love gourmet fare, the likes of which their single, working mother is rare to offer at home.

I meant to show you what we were eating last night at Sushi House but I gobbled it all up too quickly!

Suddenly, in the middle of this summer I am missing by spending far too much air-conditioned time, I long to live in the country again, near a lake, where there's nothing to do but wander around outside and see what's living there.